In this review, we find ourselves on a roll in the Playstation 2 game We Love Katamari. We find out how well this puzzle game plays.
This game was released in 2005. It is the sequel to the game Katamari Damaci which we reviewed quite a while ago. That game got a very impressive score here. Naturally, we wanted to try the sequel to see what it’s all about.
The game pretty much starts off where the original Katamari Damacy finishes. You play as the protagonist Prince whose father is the King of All Cosmos. Having restored the stars to the universe, everything is back to normal. Well, maybe not quite. As it turns out, the stars have only been restored just around Earth. The rest of the universe is still devoid of stars. So, what is to be done? Well, as it turns out, the events of Katamari Damacy has sparked a lot of popularity. Many fans have flocked to give their support for the Katamari and all those who are responsible for it. Intrigued, the prince is sent down to find out what exactly the fans want.
You start as the Prince wandering around what is known as select meadow. This operates a lot like the original select screen, only in this case, the various unlocked stages are shown. Each stage is shown through one of many fans. Now, at first, you’ll only have one fan present – the boy with the ball. Select him and he’ll point out that he forgot all about rolling the Katamari. Needing a refresher, you agree to show him the ropes. This, of course, operates as the tutorial stage. You get to learn the various moves like rolling different directions, quick turn with the L3 and R3 buttons, climbing, and dashing to name a few. The objective is to roll up Dash on the second floor.
Once you complete that stage, another fan will appear. This fan has certain expectations in mind. This goes with other fans. Generally, these expectations can be summed up into two categories: Roll as big as you can or roll as fast as you can.
Rolling as big as you can typically gives you a time limit and a goal size. To clear the stage, roll to the goal within the time limit. Now, obviously, a simple roll to the goal isn’t going to be sufficient for bigger goals. These bigger goals aren’t actually shown, but if you roll within the stretch goals, the king and the fan will be quite impressed with your performance. So, you’ll know what you hit it upon completion. Generally, just go as big as possible.
Rolling as fast as you can is slightly different. In this variation, you are given a size as a goal. This goal is a hard limit. The round ends when you reach it. The faster you complete this stage, the better.
Of course, these are the more typical standard stages. In addition to these are special stages where you need to complete specific objectives. Some involve rolling up something specific. This can be found in the cowbear stage where you either roll up a cow or a bear. While this sounds simple, the goal is to roll up the biggest one you can find. The bigger, the better. Accidentally roll up something small and you’ll have to start the level over again.
Another unique level is the campfire level. Not only do you have to roll the Katamari to a goal area once complete, but the Katamari has a very special attribute to it that makes the level more challenging. The Katamari is on fire and you have to keep it stoked. To keep it stoked, you have to roll something up. Roll up multiple items at a time and it will last longer. Obviously, fall in the water and it will instantly go out. If you lose the fire somewhere along the way and you’ll lose the round. Other similar levels involve fireflies and a whole lot of candy.
Other levels include completion rolls. This involves a time limit and you need to get as many items rolled up as possible. Such levels include the flower level and cloud level. A similar level is the clean sweep level where you simply roll up everything as quickly as possible (no time limit, but the restraints are quite tight anyway).
If you are familiar with the game already, the in-level strategies will have a lot of similarities. The objectives and altered properties will offer a unique twist to the play, but play is largely the same. For those who haven’t played, here’s a quick run down.
Players will find themselves rolling an ultra adhesive ball around a level. The goal is to collect objects by running them over. The trick is that you can only roll up objects comparatively smaller to you Katamari. Otherwise, you’ll either bounce off or crash. Bouncing off only loses times, however, crashes could see objects you collect fly off. this slightly reduces the size of your Katamari.
As you continue rolling around, your Katamari will gradually grow bigger. Of course, the larger objects you roll up, the better as this increases the size much more quickly. It may seem daunting at first because you may find yourself blowing through a third of the time and barely even getting started towards the goal size. Of course, the thing to remember is that if you are rolling efficiently, the ball will exponentially grow. As a general rule, the Katamari will grow the fastest towards the end of the round because you are collecting the largest objects. There are exception in certain levels, but that is the general gist of it.
With a few rare exceptions, a strategy often employed is not necessarily getting every object in an area. It is getting the best objects that will grow your Katamari the quickest. If there is a stack of one object, you might want to grab that as that adds size very quickly. You’ll find a number of objects that are laid out in bunches. Sometimes they are stacked on top of each other. Other times, they are in circles or in lines. Either way, snagging these can be a real time saver.
As you grow, you’ll find an audible chime after you reach a certain threshold. The camera will blur and pull back. While the rules on what you can pick up isn’t necessarily tied to whenever you get that indicator, it is a positive sign that you are getting somewhere. Sometimes, the King will interrupt and talk for a bit, but sometimes, he’ll be able to tell you that a new area is unlocked.
It’s player preference whether they want to go through the area right away or collect a few things first. Sometimes, a batch of items was missed and going back to get them may be ideal. This is because blasting through right away may result in many items simply being uncollectible right away. Because of this, you might initially be starved for objects at first and this can soak up time. Other times, it may make sense to just go straight to the next area if the player knows there’s something that can and should be collected right away. It’s purely strategic preference.
Sometimes, players may even backtrack to a previous area. They may start in an area collecting flutes and apples, but return when it is advantageous to collect the entire cars or houses afterwards. There’s really no one way to completely play a number of the maps and it’s about just getting general idea’s what what is where and finding what is efficient at the time.
Some objects that you can roll up are living. This means that they move. They can either run away or charge at you. If they charge at you, they are typically larger and can cost you some item pickups. If they run away, chances are, you can pick them up. Sometimes, living objects are just a bit on the big side of things for you, but not overwhelmingly so. As a result, if you crash into this living creature, you can stun them by causing them to fly through the air. They will spin for a brief period of time. You can collect this and it will no doubt add a whole lot to your overall mass. So, stunning is often a great sign you are about to build up your Katamari quickly.
Thrown in the mix are extra items. This is just like the previous game where players can pick up special presents along the way. These presents in this game feature embellishments for the prince. They alter his look and offer a little in-game variety, but are not necessarily critical to a players success.
The other kind of special objects players can pick up are cousins. These characters look similar to the prince or the king, but feature different colours and slightly altered shapes. These characters show up in the select meadow. In addition to this, they can count towards the collect count at the end of the game.
While it is easy to see how the game branches out, it is less clear how everything ultimately concludes. It is possible to “beat” the game when you roll up the sun. However, rolling up the sun doesn’t necessarily mean you all the objectives of the game. In fact, you are given that opportunity early on in the game and the king will scold you for finishing too quickly. This is because each fans actually features multiple levels.
Some fans will have as much as 3 levels for players to complete. When a level becomes available, they will wave around trying to get your attention. The caveat here is that if you complete a level with a really good performance rating, fans might just tell you that a new record is about all you can accomplish. So, you do need to pay attention to what they say after a while.
If you attempt a level you have already completed in the past, you’ll be given a chance to improve your size or score. At the end of the level, players will have the chance to decide whether to turn their Katamari into the next big star or simply turn it into stardust. The advantage of turning the Katamari into stardust is the fact that it does add more celestial stars in the final level for you collect. So, if you fail to top your previous score, it isn’t a total loss.
Now, one thing is for sure, I was definitely looking forward to trying this game. This is because the previous game in the series was so strong. It features a unique style of gameplay simply not found in other games so far as I know. The concept of rolling up really large balls with pretty much everything you can imagine is both absurd and surprisingly fun. Of course, the question is, would this sequel be able to expand on the concepts from the previous game or pull the quality back? The answer, thankfully, is the former.
A lot of the concepts found in the previous game are retained in this game. You can start at a very minuscule start and eventually find yourself rolling up whole islands and pieces of land. The ability for this game to scale is impressive and is certainly found in this sequel as well.
It’s always a risk to tweak the formula. Sometimes, games end up getting quite lost in the weeds when adding new ideas and concepts. It can even get to the point where the original game is barely recognizable. Fortunately, the new concepts are well handled. The more experimental rules are pretty much sequestered in their own levels. If you, for instance, don’t like the 50 object rule, it will mercifully only be in a single level. A lot of the new rules actually expand on the original concepts quite well, so there aren’t a whole lot of dud ideas here.
Another interesting element is the inclusion of different themes. Some themes revolve around flowers. Others revolve around animals and clouds. Ultimately, there are not just levels, but themed levels as well. This adds a nice amount of variety to the overall play.
Probably the only criticism I have with this game is the fact that a complete game is unclear. You might find some objectives not complete. Other times, you’ll get fans waving their hands for no reason. So, it is difficult to tell how far along you are in completing the game as there is no real indicator of progress by the end. You basically just play until you are ready to move on to another game. Lucky for this game, there is a lot of fun to be had before you are done with a particular run. So, this isn’t a huge problem by any means.
Generally speaking, this game retains what made the original so great. It then takes concepts and modifies them in special levels. This expands on what made the original great. In addition, the different levels have specific themes as well. This also increases the variety. While the true completion of the game is unclear, there is still a lot of entertainment to be had. It’s hard to really find a whole lot to complain about here.
Graphically, some of the models may seem a bit on the simple side. Of course, the thing to remember is the pure volume of object on the screen. Little wonder why some may be a bit simple. The effects are nicely done. Even the side story featured in the special movies was interesting – even if a bit twisted at times. This game is ultimately a whole lot of visual eye candy which gets quite a thumbs up from me.
The audio also fails to disappoint. The music is not only well done, but nicely varied. While it is a bit light on the electronica side of things, there is still a nice amount of variety here. It is also bi-lingual. If you only understand English, the other music is still quite enjoyable to hear. Meanwhile, the sound effects featured in this game is big on variety. You might hear some bling sounds for trophies, bangs of pots, alarm clock sounds, and a whole lot just in the small objects. There’s a whole lot of industrial sounds with the larger pickups as well. This game almost seems like a bottomless pit of entertaining sound effects.
Overall, this is an excellent game. It takes what the original has to offer and steps things up. At the same time, it manages to retain what was so great about the original which is a big challenge in video game development. The themes and objective variations really adds to the overall variety of the game. While the true ending is a bit unclear, it is otherwise hard to find anything to really complain about here. The graphics are very solid considering the huge volume of objects found in this game. So, some of the more simplified objects is understandable in the grand scheme of things. The music and sound effects also offer a whole lot to the overall game. So, an overall excellent game.
Overall
Furthest point in game: Got a few shooting stars and a whole lot of fans acknowledging that there isn’t much more to gain from a replay. Well over 1000m in the final roll, but can’t otherwise tell how far I got beyond unlocking pretty much every level.
General gameplay: 23/25
Replay value: 9/10
Graphics: 9/10
Audio: 5/5
Overall rating: 92%
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.
